The first Public Authority Practitioner Group (PAPG) meeting for 2016 was held on the 16th of March. There was a great turnout with 23 different public authorities represented. Below are some of the main discussion points from the meeting….

QSA Update

New State Archivist – The new Executive Director and State Archivist, Mike Summerell, commenced at QSA on the 7th of March.

Storage Standard – QSA has developed a new storage standard for Queensland public authorities. The QSA Storage Standards have been published and are now available on our website under Store. Scroll down until you reach the heading Storage Standards, and you will find links to the three documents, including the self-assessment tool. For further information contact the Preservations Services Unit on (07) 3037 6674 or email info@archives.qld.gov.au.

Agency Contact Protocols – Please advise if there are any preferences regarding whether agency personnel can contact QSA directly for recordkeeping questions or if you would prefer they first consult with your recordkeeping area first.

Standing Offer Arrangement – SOA QGCPO747-08 for the Records storage, retrieval and destruction, has been extended until 24 April 2016.

Case Study Proposals – A reminder that if you are interested in sharing your recordkeeping experiences with other people, QSA would like to hear from you. Just complete the Case Study Proposal from which is available on our website under Getting it Right – Case Studies.

PAPG venue/dates for 2016 – The venue and dates for future PAPG meetings will be subject to some changes.

Digital Records Policy Review

QSA has just kicked off a project which will repeal the current Digitisation Disposal Policy, Microfilming Disposal Policy and Migrating Digital Records Guideline and create a new source records disposal policy. The new policy will detail the key principles upon which early disposal decisions can be made for public records. Preliminary consultation will be undertaken with targeted record-keepers to understand how QSA can assist agencies to develop a defensible disposal policy. Following this all agencies will be invited to provide feedback on the draft source records policy.

Retention and Disposal Schedules – Unique numbering format

One item that generated a lot of conversation was the implications of unique numbering format in disposal schedules. One agency reported that after some testing the numbering patterns created some issues. For more information go to the Conversations section on the GRDS Renewal page and view the Prezi by Griffith University.

CSIRO Research Partnership

QSA’s digital archives team came to PAPG to provide a brief update about the QSA-CSIRO research collaboration project. CSIRO/Data61 have been conducting research on behalf of QSA and are looking at barriers and roadblocks around the discovery and access of records.

Agenda items

Other agenda items discussed included the challenges around capturing legacy websites and archiving in-house published web articles, specific records classes for requests for information, and managing access and audit controls in an eDRMS.

If you would like to share your thoughts or like more information about the discussion points, or you would like to provide ideas for agenda items, you can contact us via email, telephone (07) 3037 6630, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Flickr.